On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

On Saturday afternoon after the washing has been hung and our clothes damp-stained with its constant carrying back and forth we sit on grandmother’s stoep the sun warming my scalp as my cousin cuts neat rows through my hair with the tail of the comb she lays a path for the hair food and gossips about the neighbourhood

Flowers are always welcome at funerals Yellow dahlias In the midst of black mourners White lilies To adorn the grave Fists full of earth Connect to wooden boxes Encasing swollen bodies Fat and ripe with decay

At the backyard of my home where the teardrops of sad angels have rusted the wires, I will make myself a car from old wires and drive it around new brighton. then I will lose the last teardrop that ever turned me into a sad cloud with grey cheeks, making a sunflower pregnant so that it can weep seeds for my pigeons.

The tall building in Johannesburg, Marshalltown smolders. A potent smell of burned things: paint, rubber, plastic, fabric, human flesh, lingers on Albert Street. Now the onlookers know, how the burp of death smells like.